It is well known in the grinding machine art to dress the working face of the abrasive grinding wheel by several methods or forms. For example, a single point diamond, a multipoint diamond, rotary diamond or diamond roll have been used in the past. The type of grinding wheel working face and particular grinding operation to be performed prescribes the dressing device and method for providing an optimum working face. The dresser may be located on a pivoted swinging arm unit or may be a stationary unit with the grinding wheel traveling to the dresser.
A dressing device for imparting to the periphery of a grinding wheel either a combination radial and straight form, a radial form, a straight form, or a gothic arch form is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,040,409 issued Aug. 9, 1977. The patented dressing device employs a swingable turn post carrier, a turn post rotatably mounted on the turn post carrier and carrying a main dresser diamond, and cam means for swinging the turn post carrier through an arcuate path. U.S. Pat. No. 3,080,686 issued Mar. 12, 1963 is also relevant in this regard.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,292,947 issued Aug. 11, 1942 illustrates a wheel dressing device comprising several transverse and longitudinal slides to effect angular traversing movement of a pair of dresser diamonds past a grinding wheel working face having divergent angular surfaces.
Other grinding wheel dressing devices are shown in U.S. Pat. No. 2,689,434 issued Sept. 21, 1954; U.S. Pat. No. 2,947,302 issued Aug. 2, 1960; U.S. Pat. No. 3,102,529 issued Sept. 3, 1963; U.S. Pat. No. 3,167,064 issued Jan. 26, 1965; U.S. Pat. No. 3,438,156 issued Apr. 15, 1969; U.S. Pat. No. 3,481,319 issued Dec. 2, 1969 and U.S. Pat. No. 3,999,332 issued Dec. 28, 1976.
In the past, grinding wheels with a nominally 90.degree. included angle (90.degree. V-profile) working face have been used to simultaneously grind the outer diameter and adjacent flange face of bearings or similar type work parts. These 90.degree. included angle grinding wheel working faces have been dressed by a twin diamond dresser mounted on a spring-loaded precision ball slide which moves to and from the grinding wheel on a path 90.degree. to its axis. The ball slide, in turn, is mounted on a dovetail slide which, during dress, travels along a path parallel to the grinding wheel axis. This compound slide type arrangement enables one diamond to dress the angle on the front of the wheel and the other diamond to dress the angle on the back of the wheel. An adjustable, two-piece linear cam directly guides the diamonds and dictates the shape to be dressed. This dressing technique suffered from several disadvantages. In particular, this dressing technique could not produce a surface smoother than that of the cam due to the direct drive relations involved. The cam had to be ground smooth initially and from time to time reground after wear occurred. Non-straight wear in the cam and looseness in either slide were observed to result in unacceptable non-straightness in the dressed grinding wheel surface and therefore in the workpiece ground by the wheel.